Travel
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It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, and I have basically abandoned this blog for the time being.
Two weeks ago, I flew to Los Angeles for Alex’s 2nd birthday. You can see some of the photos in my gallery. This year’s festivities featured a lot of the same attractions: food, beverages, lots of presents, and, of course, Alex. However, unlike last year, Sarah did not come with me, there were a few people absent, but Alex did blow out all of his candles.
My brother and sister-in-law staged the birthday party on the day after his second birthday at a nearby park, Veteran’s Memorial Park in Sylmar. (I should note that we did go to Shakey’s the night of Alex’s actual birthday, which sated my craving for mojo potatoes.) Alex is a popular kid so there were a bunch of his and his parents’ friends at the party, in addition to some of my family. My parents, of course, were in attendance and could hardly keep away from the birthday boy, especially my mother.
I’m not sure when I’ll be back out there, but I’m hoping for another trip before the summer.
For the fifty-ninth time, I flew between JFK and LAX, which I did for my nephew Alex’s second birthday.
Of those fifty-eight flights, all but four have been on United Airlines, and Thursday’s flight was the last I would fly through United’s now-retired reservation system Apollo. As of March 3, the new United switched to SHARES, Continental’s legacy system. Since I have a fascination with deprecated technology, it is interesting to see a long standing technology platform go by the wayside. But unlike most technologies, which either fail or fade into obscurity because they stop working, Apollo is being retired because of a corporate merger, and a merged airline needs only one reservations system.
The end of Apollo won’t mean the end of anything for my flying or anyone else’s, other than the backend computer system that processes flight reservations and other passenger services. However, it’s hard not to feel a bit nostalgic as it marks the end of an era.
Remember when I thought that I recognized the house in the 1959 film The House on Haunted Hill? It turns out that the house is famous for a few reasons. Although it has appeared in a ton of films, including Bladerunner and L.A. Confidential to name but two, I “recognized” it because it looks like the Hollyhock House, which I toured with Sarah and my mom in May 2010. The Hollyhock House and Ennis House, the house from Haunted Hill, were both designed by Frank Lloyd Wright are both sited in Hollywood.
Since seeing House on Haunted Hill, I made visiting Ennis House one of my priorities when visiting Los Angeles. On the day after Christmas, my parents, Sarah, and I drove to the Hollywood Hills to see the house. Regrettably, one cannot tour the house. It was sold to a private owner in July 2011. The house needs a lot of work, but it’s not clear when the house will be open to the public once the new owner takes possession.
Visiting the house is easy with a car. Take Vermont Avenue north past Los Feliz Boulevard. Turn left on Cromwell Ave, then a quick right onto Glendower Ave. Follow the winding road up, up, and up, and then after about a quarter mile you will see the house. Mind the parking signs and take a walk around the house and, obviously, don’t disturb the adjacent properties.
After gawking at Ennis House, we drove back down the hill and stopped at Barnsdall Park to show my dad Hollyhock House because he had not seen it.
A day after we visited the Ennis and Hollyhock Houses, we stumbled on another Frank Lloyd Wright property. This was the Kundert Medical Clinic in San Luis Obispo. Unlike the other two properties, this was still in full operation. It sits along a creek on Santa Rosa Avenue, which was a main road connecting some important towns in San Luis Obispo County. After running around Hollywood looking at two (of many, many) Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Los Angeles, it was nice to find one by accident en route to our next destination.
As part of our Christmas–New Year’s vacation, Sarah and I spent about a week traveling to a few spots in California. One of our stops was in Baywood Park, which is technically in Los Osos and adjacent to the Morro Bay. We stayed at the Back Bay Inn, on a friend’s recommendation, and found a comfortable inn, and our room had a great view of the bay.
One of the novel things about this trip was that we took the train instead of driving. We surprised everyone when we told people we met at the inn that we got there by just taking two buses. You can do it, too.
We took the 7:45 AM Pacific Surfliner from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo. The train arrived just before 1:00 PM. We walked to the transit center, which is about five blocks away. If you take Santa Rosa Road, you can see a Frank Lloyd Wright house along the way. We had about an hour layover between our arrival in San Luis Obispo and ate lunch at Luna Red in town.
At the Transit Center, you can take the 12 bus to Morro Bay’s transit center, which takes about 20 minutes. From there, connect to the 13 bus that goes to Los Osos. The stop on Santa Maria Ave and 2nd St stops about two blocks from the inn.
Getting back is just as easy. You have to catch the 11 bus from Los Osos, which becomes the 12 bus and continues to San Luis Obispo. From there, we caught the northbound Coast Starlight. We had about an hour layover and ate lunch in town. Also, if your train is late, you can go to Meze, a wine and cheese shop, that is about a five-minute walk if you follow the rail tracks in the southbound direction.
This was my first time taking this trip with the train, and you can count me as a convert. Yes, the schedules are limited and it takes a lot more time to ride than it does to drive, but I’m on vacation. I’m not in a hurry.
It was supposed to be a pretty straightforward trip to Paducah, Kentucky, originating in Newark with a long connection in Chicago.
We started the day in New York as we do every day, but we had to cross the Hudson River, into New Jersey, for our flight departing Newark. A classic “I-95” rainstorm, running up the entire eastern seaboard, delayed the incoming aircraft by over two hours. That, in turn, delayed our Continental Airlines flight to Chicago and our long two-hour-plus layover turned into a very risky connection. Although we ran from our arriving gate to the Paducah gate, we missed our United Express flight. We were automatically rebooked on the last flight of the following day, which would put us into Kentucky a full day after than we had planned.
Sarah insisted that we not lose the entire day so we asked if we could be rerouted on a United flight to Nashville, and Sarah’s family would pick us up and drive to Kentucky. The agent promptly rebooked us and issued boarding passes for a flight to Nashville.
The new flight required an overnight stay so we asked if we could get vouchers for a hotel. Since it was the Continental flight that caused the misconnect, we had to ask them for accommodation. Continental doesn’t have much of a presence at O’Hare so it was a bit of a challenge to find someone, but we eventually found someone at the baggage claim office. The Continental agent obliged us and handed us complimentary hotel and meal vouchers. Thanks!
My experience with weather delays and missed connections is pretty limited. It only happened once before, when I flew on a different airline, and I was offered a discounted room, which is an airline’s standard practice. I am fairly certain that because our Newark-Chicago flight was late due to weather, we were not entitled to the hotel and meal vouchers, but I suspect that elite status might have helped in this case.
In either case, Sarah and I made the best of it. We used our meal vouchers for the Tortas Frontera at the B terminal at O’Hare and had one of the best breakfast tortas east of the Colorado River. (Note, if you have one of these $12 vouchers, get a breakfast torta and a coffee.) It also worked out because while we were at O’Hare, a reasonable one-way fare from Chicago to Los Angeles became available. Since I was using some travel credit certificates I received in September for giving up my seat, I had to redeem them in person at the airport. It would have been very difficult to redeem had we not been at O’Hare.
Although it was unfortunate that our plans turned out a bit different from we had originally planned, it helped to keep our cool and ask politely for help. I hope everyone remembers that this holiday season before screaming at an agent.
Today, I transferred some of my United Mileage Plus airline miles to Amtrak Guest Rewards points, even if the two carriers are not partners. However, United’s merger mate, Continental, has been a partner with Amtrak for many years, and beginning this past spring, you can freely transfer miles between your United and Continental accounts.
I converted the air miles to rail points since I find that earning airline miles is far easier than earning train points. For example, almost everyone can earn 5,000 miles by, say, flying on a transcontinental flight between New York and California. Since my elite status with United gives me a 100% mileage bonus on flight, I only need to fly 2,500 miles or a one-way flight between New York and Los Angeles (2,475 miles) or San Francisco (2,585 miles). If you buy a one-way ticket for $175, that’s about 7¢ per mile, or 3.5¢ per mile for me since I have the 100% mileage bonus. (Don’t hate me.)
Comparatively, Amtrak offers a less generous earning rate. You earn points based on the amount of money you spend on travel, not on how far you travel. To earn 5,000 points on Amtrak, you have to spend $2,500, as they will give you two points for every dollar spent. However, Amtrak will also give you a minimum of 100 points for every trip you take. I have exploited this rule a few times in California because you get 100 points for every segment, and that includes short-haul trips on the Pacific Surfliner, which cost as little as $20. At that rate, you can earn 5,000 points in fifty one-way trips. And at $20 per trip, which is a minimum price, that would require at least $1000 to earn the same number of points as $375 on an airline. That’s why I decided to convert my “bling” from air to rail.
One large looming question remains. What do I get with 5,000 Amtrak points?
If you’re going to do the same thing, hurry. The partnership between Continental and Amtrak ends on December 31.
Sure, it was Fake Thanksgiving, and I finally had a chance to shoot skeet. But being a city-slicking Yankee, I felt more comfortable shooting photos.
Maybe next year there will be more guns and less photography.
With my parents joining Sarah and I in Louisville, we wanted to show them one of our favorite places in the River City. The Jockey Silks Bourbon Bar inside of the Galt House Hotel was a favorite of ours when we visited it a few years ago. Not only was it a participating member of the Urban Bourbon Trail, but it also had a magician roaming around the place entertaining guests.
When we went last Friday, we found that bar was not only closed, but it was replaced by a Kaleidoscope Christmas installation. Consider it a mix of site-specific, Christmas art in a family friendly environment. Finding that this had replaced one of our favorite bourbon bars was a true bummer. I hope that this is a seasonal closure for Jockey Silks. Were it permanent, Louisville should mourn the loss of a great, classy institution.
As we prepare for the annual Fake Thanksgiving festivities in Kentucky, it looks like my parents will be joining us. As I write, my mom and dad are en route to Chicago and then on to Kentucky to partake in what I called the greatest idea for having Thanksgiving but without all the headaches.
With my parents coming, this will be the first time that I will be seeing any blood relative for a quasi-Thanksgiving celebration since the Clinton Administration.
The fine folks at the Loew’s Jersey in Jersey City launched their annual tribute to Halloween with a Friday night screening of the William Castle classic, The House on Haunted Hill (1956). The tribute continues tonight with separate-admission screenings of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). The latter film, a German silent expressionist masterpiece, will be screened with live organ accompaniment.
Last night’s screening had two treats for architectural nerds. The first is the building itself at the Loews Jersey. It opened in 1929 as an outpost of the MGM-Loews movie empire and at a reported cost of $2 million, it was an example of the picture palaces that not only screened movies but sought to give audiences a transformative experience. The architectural style appears a little behind the times, as it borrows heavily from Gothic, cathedral structures that were common at the turn of the century. By the 1920s, it was more common to see Art Deco as the dominant style, but aside from old Radio City Music Hall, which opened a few short years later, most movie theater architecture remained unchanged since the end of the 1910s.
The second treat came from the movie itself. Sarah and I found that the exterior of the titular house looked familiar, and very similar to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hollyhock House in Hollywood. Poking around the Internet Commons, I found that the exterior shots were of Ennis House, a Lloyd Wright work and has been compared to Hollyhock (below).
The house has also been used in several movies, including Blade Runner and L.A. Confidential, and it has often been the home and lair of movie villains, an assessment I remember encountering in Thom Anderson’s essay film, Los Angeles Plays Itself. It seems a bit odd that the trip to Jersey City really seem to evoke sentimental feelings to L.A. Maybe it’s time I take a trip to L.A. for more than four hours.
